Scar Tissue

"It's like a great big smile" said the midwife as she inspected my C section scar before discharging me... I'm still a bit too squeamish to examine it thoroughly as I am under some ridiculous notion that if I poke it too much, my intestines might fall out. So I'll take her word for it, but it got me to thinking that the scars on our bodies tell the story of who we are, where we've been, what we've become and how we got here. They show the ills (or downright stupid things) that have befallen us as well as, in the case of my 'smile', the gifts they have brought...here's me top to toe...

Crown of Head
You can't see it, unless you know it's there and root under my hair - it's an inch long and an old old scar... 9 years old, running for the ice cream van, I tripped spectacularly and somehow fell backwards smashing my head open and requiring 5 stitches. I only remember having the stitches out and, much to my mother's disgust, the Dr honoured my request to keep them and put the removed stitches inbetween pieces of sellotape so i could take them home...I suspect they are still lying aorund in the bottom of a drawer in her house somewhere...

Left Eyebrow
This is now a silvery thread at the end of my eyebrow...if I am careful when I pluck my brows I can conceal it... Old enough to know better and 3 sheets to the wind, caught short on the way home from the pub, I crouched behind a parked car in a Swindon car park...my mate shouted at me to hurry up but in my drunken state I thought she was warning me that someone was coming to their car, so I panicked and tried to stand up/move/don't know what, fell over my jeans and landed face down in the tarmac cutting my eyebrow in the process. Apparently when I returned to the group, blood trickling and bits of car park tarmac stuck to my face, I pretended all was well...have learnt my lesson and haven't drunk gold schlager since.......

Stomach (about an inch to the left of my belly button)
When I was 7, my dad, princess sister and I got the chicken pox. It was June, it was hot and sunny and we spent our quarantine messing about in the garden for days on end. Every evening my mum brandished cotton wool and hot pink calomine lotion, doused us all up and lectured us about itching, scratching and picking the spots. I had one monster pox on my stomach, which I was obsessed about due to its size and I couldn't resist picking at it...I remember the immense satisfaction of systematically testing the edges of the scab for its removability and/or level of pain for days then when it felt ready, slowly peeling it off to reveal the new pale flesh underneath...I also recall the bollocking my mother gave me and she was right, it's been a pale, white, almost circular, flat scar ever since... it doesn't tan and interestingly increased from it's usual 10p size to £2 whilst I was pregnant...the Other Half says I am unduly fascinated by it...

Left Knee
I've always been allergic to insect bites and in spite of this always been a bit lax about making sure I don't get bitten. In 1988 I went to Italy on a camping holiday with my friends family. We stayed in a forest, with lots of trees, lots of vegetation and naturally lots of lots of mozzies. My mother had packed me lots and lots of insect repellent and bite cream which I studiously ignored... I got eaten alive...one of my bites on the top of the knee cap became quickly inflamed and after we came home, got infected and fascinated, I charted the progress of my swollen, hot leg with it's increasingly reddening, poisonous hue daily in the run up to my GCSE results. Of course, when asked, I told my mum it was itchy but ok and sprayed on some more wasp-ease.

On the day my GCSE results came out, I collected them from school, enrolled in college then as it was a nice day and I walked home. 3 miles later, I could barely move the leg whcih was almost doubled in size. My dad took me to the health centre where they lanced my knee and squeezed the poison out. He is still traumatised by the experience of having to sit next to me and hold my hand and watch what came out of my blood poisoned leg to still be unable to eat mushy peas to this day. I on the other hand, was completely uninterested by this point and only bothered about the fact I had to start college the following week, where there would be boys and I had to have my knee bandaged and use crutches...16 year olds truely know no shame....

I think that's me, what about you...